Thai-Style Shrimp Cakes With Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce Recipe

We love making shrimp cakes as a full dinner—they're a lot cheaper than crab cakes and work with a good variety of flavor combinations. Here we miniaturize them down to party-appetizer size, combine them with some Thai flavors, and serve them with a tangy chili dip.

Why It Works

Processing half the shrimp while leaving larger chunks gives the cakes more texture.

Directions

1.

Coarsely chop shrimp into 1/2-inch pieces. Set aside. Reserve a few tablespoons of sliced scallion greens for serving.

2.

Combine garlic, jalapeño, remaining scallions, cilantro, lime zest, and a large pinch of salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until everything is finely minced. Add half of the shrimp, the mayo, the cornstarch, and the egg white. Pulse until the mixture forms a coarse paste, about 5 or 6 pulses. Add the remaining shrimp and pulse two or three times to combine everything. Some of the shrimp will be chunkier.

3.

Transfer the mixture to a bowl and add 1/4 cup of the panko breadcrumbs. Fold in with a spatula or your hands. The mixture should be soft and should just hold its shape if you form a ball. If it’s too soft, add more breadcrumbs a little at a time until a ball just holds together. It will stiffen up more when it gets cold. Chill mixture for at least 30 minutes and up to a day.

4.

Once chilled, use wet hands and a tablespoon (or portioning scoop) to form the mixture into bite-sized patties. Transfer to a large plate as you go. When all the patties are formed, heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat until shimmering. Fry patties in batches until golden brown and cooked through, turning once, 3 to 4 minutes total.

5.

Serve warm, scattered with cilantro and finely sliced scallions along with dipping sauce.

Special Equipment

Food processor

Notes

In place of homemade chili sauce, you can use store-bought sauce doctored up with some fish sauce and lime juice to taste.

This Recipe Appears In

Emily's culinary adventures began on the gritty streets of 1970s Manhattan, where she ate Pernil and kimchi more often than peanut butter and jelly. Now she lives in upstate NY and develops recipes that combine locally-sourced ingredients into simple but delicious recipes. When she’s not cooking, writing or taking photographs, she’s probably hard at work editing a movie or television show, which she’s done professionally for the last twenty years.
Matt grew up in Kent, England, and his upbringing involved a suspiciously large proportion of tinned goods. Many of those tins contained sticky toffee pudding, though, so it really wasn’t all that bad. When he’s not thinking about food, he’s running an IT consultancy in the Hudson Valley and/or scheduling a marathon of early Doctor Who episodes. Almost more than anything else, he enjoys swearing at his vegetable garden. At the very moment you’re reading this, there’s a good chance he’s chasing one or all of his chickens back into the yard.
Check out more of Matt and Emily's nerdy ramblings at Nerds with Knives.

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